Review: Is Google Making us Stupid

In Nicholas Carr's article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Carr asserts his belief that because of the huge supply of information on the internet, the internet is causing our brains to adjust to reading, making it difficult to focus on the information and read deeply. Carr explains his belief by providing us with multiple experiences across the web by bloggers and researchers who have begun to study online habits, stating that they have noticed that they skim articles online, going to hyperlinks and sometime not even going back to the original article to finish it, but moving onto the next interesting thing. Carr spends the majority of the article pointing out and addressing our fears, becoming completely dependent on the internet, possibly even moving into AI (artificial intelligence). He does, however, point out that it is our nature to expand ourselves into something that moves faster or can produce faster. Carr takes an additional look at inventions that have lead us further into the future, inventions like the typewriter, the steam engine, or even the book press. Lots of people had doubts about what kind of impact these things would have on our society, but Carr points out that we should always be skeptical of changes, of advances into our future. Carr never offers a firm solution to his idea's and thesis, however, he does urge us throughout his article, that we should be aware of the changes and do our best to adjust, but never completely change how we think and read.

Carr, Nicolas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic (July/Aug 2008). Web. @7 June 2011.

1. Carr's introductory strategy was a movie quote from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I believe it to be quite effective as it provides us with an AI perspective; a machine that feels himself losing his mind.
2. I think his tone/attitude is informative/human.
3. I believe him to be a relative credible source. He has published many books and articles on technology, business,